Shadows of the Past
by Fae2135
Summary: SEQUEL TO LOST AND FOUND. Life is good for Oz’s two new rulers. But things never go well for long in Elphaba’s world. When an old enemy takes advantage of a hidden catch to one of Elphaba’s past spells, disaster is the only possible result. Elphiyero.


**A/N: Look who's back! I want to apologize to everyone for disappearing off the face of the planet for the last sixteen months – blame college, several new obsessions, and my incurable laziness.**

**That said, welcome to the (hopefully) long-awaited sequel to Lost and Found! I'm afraid I can't make any promises about how often I'll be able to update, but I hope you all enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I definitely thought I owned Wicked. Then I woke up.**

* * *

Yet another flash of lightning lit up the room, and a moment later the accompanying burst of thunder rent the stillness of the night. Elphaba lay wide awake in bed, feeling extremely childish at being kept from sleeping by something as trivial as the weather. She liked the rain, but thunderstorms were quite another matter, especially after what had happened to her sister. Telling herself firmly that she was just being silly, she rolled over and cuddled closer to Fiyero, who, she noted with a twinge of jealousy, was sleeping peacefully, completely oblivious to the din of the storm.

Try as she might, however, she simply could not seem to get comfortable. This, combined with the squall that was raging outside, was enough to keep her awake for a while longer. But finally the steady rhythm of Fiyero's even breathing and the feel of his solid, reassuring warmth beside her managed to lull her into an uneasy sleep.

_She was standing in a large enclosed space, which she quickly recognized as the throne room of the palace. The only light came from dozens of candles that stood in various strategic places, casting eerie, flickering shadows everywhere. She glanced towards the open double doors at the other end of the hall, and became aware that there were crowds of people milling about in the antechamber, all dressed in somber black mourning attire. This puzzled her for a moment, until she came to another, more surprising realization: she was completely alone. _

_This was a rare occurrence nowadays – Glinda was never far away, and Fiyero could usually be found within easy reach of wherever Elphaba was. And even when they weren't, there were always servants nearby. When Elphaba wanted to be truly alone, she usually had to ask for it. Which made her wonder how it had developed that she was by herself now. She began to look around, trying to see if she could find an explanation for whatever was going on._

_Her gaze quickly fell on a large, rectangular object that sat not far away. It seemed to be a container of some sort, roughly two feet deep, three feet wide, and perhaps not quite twice that distance in length. The object rested on top of a cloth-covered table or pedestal of some kind, which raised it to a level slightly higher than Elphaba's waist. The lid had been cut down the middle parallel to its shorter sides, splitting it into two parts. The half of the lid nearest to Elphaba was closed, but the other half was raised, exposing the box's contents to view. She couldn't recall ever seeing such a thing in person before, as the only people she cared about who had died had not been given proper burials, but she knew at once what it had to be: a casket. _

_So this was some sort of funeral or memorial service, then. She was growing more apprehensive by the minute, not at all sure that she even wanted to know who had died. But some outside force seemed to take hold of her, propelling her forward. The bier drew her like iron to a magnet until she was close enough to see the person in the coffin. And when she caught sight of the lifeless face, the skin an awful, artificial waxy color, the eyes shut in eternal repose, she had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stifle her cry as she stumbled backwards in horror._

"_No… it can't be… Glinda…"_

_In her haste to escape the image of her best friend lying dead in a coffin, Elphaba accidentally backed into someone. Half-dazed with confusion and grief, she turned to see who was there… and was met with a face that she had hoped never to see again._

"_Oh, my dear Miss Elphaba, I am so terribly sorry for your loss," cooed Madam Morrible in a voice dripping with sympathy so false, it was sickening._

"_Morrible? What are you doing here?" she asked in bewilderment, trying to comprehend how it could be that the older woman wasn't in prison where she belonged._

"_Why, I've come to lend you my support in your time of need, of course."_

"_I don't need any support from __you__!"_

_The Wizard's former press secretary laid a motherly hand on her shoulder. "Now, now, dearie, I understand you're distraught. But there was nothing that could be done to save her, surely you understand that. You mustn't blame yourself. You know she wouldn't want you to." Then a smile curled the corners of her mouth that belied the words of comfort she had just spoken. "Even though her death __is__ entirely your fault."_

"_What? No! That's… that's not true!" protested Elphaba, feeling as though she might be sick at the very thought. "You're lying, just like always!" But somehow, she couldn't be entirely certain that was true…_

"_Ah, you'd like to think so, wouldn't you?" Morrible grinned. "No, Miss Elphaba, you have no one to thank for this but yourself." Then she stepped closer, as though to speak confidentially, and the tone of affected sympathy returned. "I know you miss our dear Miss Glinda terribly. But you needn't mourn her any longer. You'll be seeing her again much sooner than you think."_

_Elphaba's forehead creased into a confused frown at this, and she opened her mouth to ask what exactly the older woman meant. But then she realized that Morrible was reaching into her sleeve for something. Too late, the green girl caught the flash of light that glinted off the dagger in the former press secretary's hand. She barely had time to scream for help before the blade had embedded itself in her heart…_

"Elphaba! Elphaba, wake up!"

She woke with a violent start and bolted upright in bed, her heart pounding, her eyes wide with terror, her breathing harsh and ragged. Fiyero was sitting up next to her, concern written all over his face, his hands still resting on her shoulders from where he had apparently shaken her to pull her out of the awful dream. Weak with relief that what she had seen had not actually happened, and needing something to hold onto as the horror of the nightmare gave way to reality, she collapsed against him, hiding her face in his shoulder, and clung to him as tightly as she could. He pulled her close and held her tightly, and she huddled against him, suddenly realizing how badly she was shaking.

"Shh, Elphaba, calm down. Everything's fine," he murmured into her hair, one of his hands moving soothingly up and down her back. "I'm right here. I've got you. You're safe."

Safely cradled against him, she curled into his arms and let the overwhelming relief of his presence wash over her. After a few moments, she finally managed to find her voice. "I'm all right. It was just a nightmare, that's all."

"Must've been one hell of a nightmare," he commented, his voice laced with concern.

"You have no idea," she agreed miserably, nestling closer to him. "Sometimes I get these… these incredibly strange dreams. I think they have something to do with my powers. They're not like normal dreams. They're clearer, more vivid, more detailed – I guess you could say they're not so much dreams as… premonitions, almost. They don't happen very often, but when they do… well, let me put it this way: I once had a dream like that about flying, and not long afterwards I was fleeing the Emerald City on an enchanted broom."

"And you just had one of these dreams, and you saw something bad happening," he surmised.

"You could say that," she quipped, "though I think 'bad' is a bit of an understatement in this case."

"What was it?"

Elphaba didn't particularly want to revisit the nightmare, but if she was right and it was one of the strange premonitions she sometimes had, Fiyero would need to know. She shut her eyes in an attempt to stay calm as she recalled the details. "Glinda had died," she began slowly, "and they were holding some sort of funeral or memorial service for her. I was standing there by her casket, and all of a sudden Morrible showed up out of nowhere. She told me that Glinda's death was my fault, and then she came after me with a dagger she'd hidden up her sleeve…" She took a deep breath, attempting to maintain her tenuous control over her emotions, before finishing, "That was when you woke me up."

Fiyero listened intently to her account of her dream, and his arms tightened around her instinctively. He had apparently taken her at her word about her premonitions without a second thought – not for the first time, Elphaba thanked whatever lucky stars she might have that nothing related to magic ever seemed to faze him – and clearly he didn't like this premonition any more than she did. Then the soldier in him seemed to kick in, the part of him that allowed him to suppress the horror of a situation and determine what needed to be done about it. "Well, is there something you can do to prevent what you saw?" he wondered. "If you know what's going to happen, maybe you can stop it somehow."

She shook her head apprehensively. "That's just it, Fiyero. The dreams show me what's going to happen, but never how or when. I never know until it's too late to do anything about it. And the few times I've tried, it hasn't made any difference. In some cases, I almost wonder if my trying to keep the things I saw from happening was what _caused_ them to happen." She gave a humorless laugh. "Some witch I am! What good is it catching glimpses of the future if you can't do anything to change what you see?"

"At least now we know we need to watch out. And we can tell Glinda so she'll know, too. Maybe that's all it was – a warning so we can be ready for trouble. Even if we can't avoid it, it's always better to be prepared than to be caught completely off-guard," he reasoned.

"Maybe you're right," she replied, but there was no real confidence in her voice.

Fiyero caught her lack of conviction at once, and he gave her a knowing look. "You don't really think so, do you?"

"I'm afraid past experience would lead me to believe otherwise," she admitted, feeling guilty for letting him see that his attempts at reassuring her had been less than effective.

But he didn't seem to be upset by his lack of success. "Well, whatever happens, at least you don't have to sit here and worry about it all alone. We're in this together. And nothing like that dream is going to happen to you or to Glinda, not if I have anything to say about it. I promise."

Elphaba couldn't help the slight smile that curved up the corners of her mouth at that. "Now _that_, I believe."

"Good, because I mean it." He relaxed his embrace slightly and leaned down to press his lips to hers in a soft kiss. "Are you feeling any better now?"

She considered his question for a moment, and then nodded as she came to the realization that a small part of the terror of the dream did seem to have dissipated with the telling. "A little," she replied. "But I can't imagine I'll be getting back to sleep anytime soon. I think I'll go sit down in the library and read for a while."

He nodded. "All right. Do you want me to come with you?"

Elphaba shook her head. "Thank you, my sweet, but you don't need to do that. There's no reason why both of us should lose sleep over this. I'd feel guilty for keeping you awake."

"I wouldn't mind it."

"I know. But I would."

"Well, if you're sure…"

"I'm sure," she insisted. When she saw from the expression on his face that he was still not completely convinced, she tightened her arms around him reassuringly, resting her head against his shoulder. "I appreciate your concern, Fiyero, I really do. But I'll be fine. I just need to keep my mind occupied so I don't end up dwelling on the dream. Reading will help distract me."

"I bet I can come up with some other ways you could be distracted…" remarked Fiyero, taking advantage of her head's position on his shoulder to bend down and leave a trail of kisses down her neck.

Elphaba closed her eyes to better focus on the sensation. She briefly considered attempting to stick to her plan of slipping downstairs to the palace library and letting Fiyero get back to sleep. But it was impossible to summon the willpower to pull away when his lips were moving across her skin like that. Finally she gave up the effort and lifted her head to pull him down into a proper kiss. The library wasn't going anywhere; it would be there later if she still needed it. And besides, she decided, this might even be a better distraction than books.

* * *

Some time later, Elphaba was still lying awake, and she renewed her original intention to make her way down to the library. She expected that her attempts to follow through on this plan would be more successful this time, as Fiyero was once again fast asleep. In fact, she, too, had nearly managed to fall back to sleep herself more than once. But every time, just as she hovered on the hazy border between wakefulness and slumber, images from her earlier nightmare had returned to plague her, filling her mind with snatches of the horrific dream. All the panic it had caused was brought back to the surface, and it shocked her rudely back into wide-eyed wakefulness as she fought to slow her racing heart.

At last she accepted that she was not going to be getting any more sleep that night. With a resigned sigh, she tossed back the covers and climbed out of bed as carefully as she could, grateful that, amid all the revisitings of the nightmare, she had at least managed to avoid waking Fiyero again. Finding her way across the darkened room to her closet, she grabbed the first thing her hand touched, and in another few moments, she had replaced her pajamas with a day dress and slid her feet into her trusty, comfortable old boots. After crossing back to collect the book she was currently reading from her bedside table, she slipped out into the hall, taking care to make sure the door shut silently behind her.

Elphaba had a favorite place to sit in the palace library – an overstuffed armchair with a couple of plump pillows and a matching ottoman, tucked in an out-of-the-way corner opposite the doors. From this particular spot, she could observe everyone that came and went without them immediately noticing her. It was for this chair that Elphaba headed upon entering the library now. But when she reached it, she was surprised to find it already occupied.

"You couldn't sleep, either?" Glinda greeted her ruefully.

"No, I couldn't," the green girl confirmed, taking a seat on the ottoman. "Apparently insomnia is going around tonight."

"So it seems," agreed Glinda.

"Have you been here long?"

The blonde shrugged. "Oh, maybe half an hour, give or take a few minutes. I'm so glad you showed up, Elphie. There's _nothing_ to do in here!"

"We're in a library," Elphaba pointed out mildly. "You could have found a book to read."

"Please!" scoffed Glinda. "I was already bored enough just sitting here without throwing a book into the bargain." She paused for a moment before observing thoughtfully, "Although I guess maybe that would have worked to help me sleep."

Elphaba shook her head at her friend's twisted logic. There were some things on which the two of them would simply never agree. "I know why _I_ couldn't sleep," she said, changing the subject. "But what's keeping _you_ up? You usually sleep like the dead – I used to have to resort to all sorts of drastic measures to get you up in time for class in the mornings when we were roommates."

"I remember," the blonde assured her, her expression making it clear that the recollections were not among her more pleasant memories. "To answer your question, I had a nightmare, that's all. And I just can't seem to shake it off."

"Really?" Elphaba raised an eyebrow, surprised at the coincidence. "Well, it seems insomnia isn't the only thing going around."

Glinda quickly grasped her meaning and asked, "You had a nightmare, too?"

The green girl nodded. "A particularly nasty one."

"Hmm. Maybe it's the weather." Glinda gestured towards a window, where they could see that the tempest outside had yet to die down. "I can't speak for you, but I know I never sleep well when it's storming."

"That could be, I suppose," Elphaba allowed, even though she knew that wasn't the explanation in her case.

"Although I've never had a dream quite like this one before…"

Something in her friend's tone sent goosebumps racing across the green girl's skin. She really didn't want to know, but her mouth seemed to have suddenly acquired a mind of its own, and she heard herself ask, "What do you mean?"

"Well, it's a little hard to explain…" Glinda was silent for several moments, as though searching for the words to adequately convey what she wanted to express. Finally she seemed to find what she was looking for, and she elaborated, "Usually when I dream, it's very vague and hazy, without many details. I might remember one person who happened to be there with me, or what happened in one specific part of the dream, but I forget most of what I dream as soon as I wake up. But everything in this dream was crystal clear. I can remember all of it perfectly, even now, sitting here talking about it."

By now, every muscle in Elphaba's body had gone rigid with tension. She recognized a description of a premonition when she heard it, and the fact that Glinda had had one tonight of all nights when she'd never had one before in her life… it was simply not possible that it was mere coincidence. She had a sinking feeling that she hardly needed to ask about the content of the blonde's dream, but she did so anyway, demanding, "What did you dream, Glinda?"

The blonde shook her head. "I'd really rather just forget about it."

"Talking about it might help, then," suggested Elphaba. She was growing increasingly anxious to hear about her friend's dream, but she didn't want to alarm Glinda by showing it. Instead, she imbued her voice with all the powers of persuasion she possessed as she continued, "I heard somewhere that telling someone else about a nightmare can help you get it out of your head. If you let fear of a dream force you to keep silent about it, you give the dream power over you. Bringing it out into the open – sharing it with someone else – breaks that power, or so the theory goes."

The shorter girl looked as reluctant to discuss her dream with Elphaba as the green girl had been to discuss hers with Fiyero. However, after a moment of deliberation, she conceded, "I suppose it couldn't hurt to try it." She swallowed hard and finally answered Elphaba's question. "I was in the throne room," she began in a small voice, "and there was some kind of wake or memorial or something going on. I didn't know who had died, so I went to look in the casket, and… oh, Elphie, it was you! And then Morrible was there, and she told me that it was all my fault that you had died, and then she pulled out a dagger and stabbed me! Oh, Elphie, it was awful!"

Though this wasn't exactly the account the green girl had been expecting, it was close enough, and it took an unsettling amount of her considerable willpower to keep the chill of foreboding that ran down her spine from showing on her face. But she managed it somehow. "Well, then, it's a good thing it was only a dream, isn't it?" she asked, intentionally keeping her tone light.

This was an outright lie, one of the first that Elphaba had ever told her best friend, and it made her acutely uncomfortable. But it was for Glinda's own good, she justified the untruth to herself. There was no sense in upsetting the blonde when it wasn't even certain that there was any reason to be upset. Glinda had a tendency to overreact in situations like this, and snapping her out of a fit of hysteria was not on Elphaba's agenda for the day.

Besides, the fact that they had both had more-or-less identical premonitions at the same time didn't necessarily have to mean anything; it could merely be coincidence. Elphaba did have a tendency to see trouble brewing where there was none. Her days as the Wicked Witch of the West had conditioned her to anticipate the worst possible outcome of any scenario, even though nine times out of ten the worst never came to pass and her worrying turned out to have been pointless. This could very well be one of those nine times out of ten.

She hoped that her lie to Glinda was not as obvious as the ones in her own mind sounded.

As much to reassure herself as to comfort her friend, she echoed Fiyero's words to her from earlier, reaching out to give the blonde's hand an encouraging squeeze for added emphasis. "Don't worry. Nothing like that is going to happen to either of us, not if I have anything to say about it. I promise." She offered Glinda a comforting smile, doing her best to ignore the part of her mind that was imagining what would happen if she didn't get a say in the matter.


End file.
